Each flight log entry usually
represents a launch or test day, and describes the
events that took place.
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The following photographs are from the
recovered rocket that was stuck in a tree for
around 392 days.

Nosecone was separated on the ground.

The nosecone separated where it was taped
on.

Most of rocket is buckled and fins are
missing.

The parachute has completely ripped off.

The fairing splice is broken.

The spliced sleeve has almost completely
delaminated.

The nozzle o-ring is missing

A spider found a home in the nozzle.

Servo motor still works.

Puffed up LiPo batteries.

Another spider found his home here.

Servo Timer II and servo motor removed.

Fresh battery connected, both timer and
servo motor work just fine.

Date:
11th &
12th
January 2013
Location:Workshop, ANSTO, NSW, Australia
Conditions:Warm and sunny.
Team Members at Event:GK,
PK, Paul K and John K.

Here is an update of what we have
been up to over the past couple of months
and what we would like to do this year.

Shadow II progress

After a 6 month break we are
getting the Shadow II ready to fly again.
There weren't too many modifications needed
since the last time it flew. We are
continuing to keep the
Shadow Build log
going with the latest changes and will post
flight reports in this section again. Jump
to the bottom of the build log to see the
latest updates.

We plan to launch the rocket at the next
NSWRA launch this month. The launch is
scheduled for 26th January so less than 3
weeks away, weather permitting of course. We
plan to launch it at a higher pressure than
last time, but haven't decided what pressure
yet. It will most likely be in the 440psi -
450psi range. If it survives the
pressurisation, launch and landing we will
do a second attempt at perhaps a slightly
higher pressure again. We still need to run the simulations to see what to expect and set the
correct timing on the deployment mechanism.

Inverter rocket

We have also been working on a new rocket
called the "Inverter". We have set up it's own
build log so you can follow its progress. We
also hope to bring this rocket out on the
26th for its maiden flight. The build log
with the design discussions is here:
Inverter Build Log.

We have a few configuration options we
would like to try with this rocket further
down the track, depending on how we go with
the first flights. One configuration option
would be to use a couple of larger bottles
in the middle but with the nozzle
further up the rocket so that stability
would be even further improved by keeping
all the water near the top.

Servo Timer IIs

We have almost finished soldering up
and testing the last of this batch of STII
timers. Thank you to everyone who purchased
one or more of
the timers. There are still some left
for sale if you are interested:
Servo Timer
II.

Recovered Rocket!

In mid December David contacted me that
our rocket which was stuck in the tree since
13th November 2011
was finally recovered at the last NSWRA launch on 9th December 2012. The rocket
had been stuck up there for over a year, or
around 392 days. Presumably it fell out of
the tree a few days earlier but it still had
been out in the elements for that long. We
last photographed it
6 months ago. I only got a hold of the
rocket
yesterday when it was returned by David via
Tim.

Now I am not one to be superstitious but
it was lost on the 13th, which was
also our flight day 113 and was stuck
there for 13 months! :)

The rocket suffered a lot of damage in
that time:
- Lost the ping pong ball out of the nose
- The nozzle o-ring is gone
- The parachute is torn off at the shroud
lines
- The sleeve around the splice has
delaminated about 70% of the way around.
- The LiPo batteries are dead and puffed up
- The fairing splice broke
- The fins are missing
- The bottles are buckled
- Parachute door is gone

But it wasn't a total loss. The Servo
Timer II survived well and still works
without a problem. It was actually one of
our early test models with the blue LED and
a different rotary switch. We just hooked it
up to the same servo motor that was there in
the tree with it and connected it to a fresh
9V battery. Both it and the servo ran first
go! This was a great test of the durability
of the timer. :)

The tornado tube and nozzle also look in
good shape, though I don't know how much the
UV exposure may have weakened them.

We've put some of the photos of the
recovered rocket on the left.

ANSTO at Lucas Heights

NSWRA was invited again this year by the
Education and Discovery Centre team leader
Rod Dowler to do a number of demonstration
flights during their
Water Rocket Workshop for kids at
ANSTO.
David and Tim went out on Thursday to do a
couple of pyro flights with one group of
kids. Tim, my boys and I came out on Friday 11th January to also do a
couple of demonstration flights for another
group.

I had my small pyro rockets and launcher
ready the night before but Tim called to say
we couldn't launch pyro rockets the next day
due to the total fire ban in place for NSW.
So I put together a simple launcher and some
water rockets so we could at least fly
those. I wasn't sure if I was going to be
able to bring the scuba tank on site so I
quickly made a hose adaptor as a backup for
the launcher so we could connect it to a
bicycle pump. It turned out the AFP had no
problems with the tank so it made launching
the rockets much easier.

Unfortunately because this is a secure
government facility we were unable to bring
any cameras to the launch area. It's not
often you get an opportunity to launch
rockets in the secure area of Australia's
Nuclear reactor! :)

The 2 hour water rocket program is really
well setup and is targeted at grade 2-3
kids. Although there were some younger and
older kids as well. They give a 10 minute
lecture first with some pictures and videos
and explain how water rockets work. The kids
then spend about 30 minutes building their
own rockets out of 1.25L bottles, and get
help gluing on the foam nosecone with
hot-melt glue. They use the
Rokit fin and nozzle set to attach to
the rockets. The kids get to keep their
rockets, but not the fins. At the end of the
workshop they are, however, given
instructions on how to add their own fins at
home. This greatly simplifies the whole
workshop and gets them flying their rockets
quickly. They are pressurised by bicycle
pumps and release automatically when enough
pressure builds up. The kids got to launch
their rockets three times with two kids
launching at a time.

In between the kids launches we flew our
demonstration flights. The first flight was
Axion III at 100psi. The wind was a little
swirly but the flight went well and the
rocket landed under parachute within the
oval. On the second launch we flew the Axion
II rocket at 110psi with foam. The second
flight went off at a little bit of an angle
and right towards the security building, but
the parachute opened in time and the rocket
drifted back into the oval safe and sound.
The kids really enjoyed the launches.

As the kids were packing up after their
third launch. Paul took his rocket that he
made with the group and attached our fins
and nozzle to it. We launched it at 110psi.
It was a great launch and popped off its
nosecone when it landed hard.

It was a fun day and the staff at the
Discovery Center were great. They also do
tours so we are planning to do that with
the whole family in a couple of weeks time.

Fairing Tutorial

Last week we added a tutorial on how to
make simple fairings for tornado-tube
coupled rockets.
See the
fairing
tutorial for more details.

Polaron G2

The Polaron G2 - Phase 2 is also going
ahead this year. We had put this one on the
backburner after the August 2011 static
tests due to the need to
re-engineer the whole launcher and booster
retaining mechanisms because of the higher
pressures and loads involved. We think we
have an approach now so we'll post
details when we start building. There will
also be a dedicated build log for this
project.

We really want to get this rocket flying
in this configuration. With a 10-11 second
long burn on the main stage it should be
quite an interesting flight. The boosters
alone will have the capacity of the
Acceleron V rocket at almost twice the
pressure.

We are considering having individual
release mechanisms for all the boosters as
well as the main stage. The loads are just
to great on the central nozzle if we went
with the single release point like
previously.

New Video Camera

At the end of last year Santa brought us a
new video camera. It is a Panasonic
HC-X900M that will
hopefully make some nice rocket videos. With the
3MOS sensors it records at up to 1920x1080
50p, but my current video editing software
can't handle that quite yet so I'm just
filming and editing everything in 1080 50i for the time
being. The 50p video quality is amazing from the
camera and much better than our old HD
camera. I'll only be putting a down-sampled
1280 x 720 version of the videos on YouTube
as even that is a lot of data to have to
wait through to upload on our slow internet
connection.

The optical stabiliser is great for less
jerky video especially when zoomed in. It has a lot of manual controls
too which
make it easy to use in specific situations,
but I leave it on auto most of the time. The
pre-record feature will be ideal for
unexpected events during launches. You can
press the record button after the event and
still get the shot. :) We used the camera
for the fairing tutorial.